Who The Hell Are You?
by WRTRD
Summary: Kate Beckett spent the summer recovering from having been shot, and hasn't spoken to Rick Castle in months. When she comes back to work, she finds that she has an unexpected rival. And she's going to fight. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It's tough to carry a name like Dunwittie—so close to Dimwitty, an easy taunt for an easy target. But not for Alison Dunwittie, not even on the playground or the school bus. Nobody ever dared, because from the moment of her birth, Alison was drop-dead gorgeous. She'd never had baby fat or knobby knees, never needed braces or glasses, and even in high school she was zit-free.

Alison Dunwittie has the unattainable beauty of a Charlize Theron, to whom she bears a strong resemblance—one she is cultivating assiduously now. For though Alison is still a 10, at 41 she's worrying about the inevitable diminution of her beauty. She detects the tiny cracks in her own façade: she found her first gray hair three years ago, and she wonders how long can she call her nascent wrinkles laugh lines. She lived and traded so well on her looks that it had never occurred to her that what her mother called The Grim Slide would happen to her. She divorced her first two husbands, trading up to someone richer and more powerful on both occasions, but spouse number three dumped her for a 23-year-old. Furthermore, the marriage hadn't lasted long enough for the pre-nup bonanza to kick in. In other words, his lawyer had been smarter than hers, and she's no longer rich. Or at least, nowhere near as rich as she once was and would like to be again.

She lived in Chicago for two decades, but during her recent divorce she realized that she needed newer, bigger pastures. She considered and rejected Los Angeles because in her experience women over 35, even a Charlize Theron lookalike, were all but invisible there, and began entertaining the idea of moving to New York City. And then one cold winter day—and lakefront Chicago winter days are cold and unforgiving, especially to the newly self-acknowledged middle-aged—she happened to see Richard Castle on a morning news show. "Son of a bitch," she said, standing in front of her TV in nothing but a terrycloth bathrobe and a boatload of Botox. "It's Ricky Rodgers."

How had she not known this? How had it escaped her notice that this guy with whom she'd had a one-night stand during her freshman year in college had become a gazillionaire best-selling mystery writer? She doesn't remember much about their conversation and she'd never seen him again—they were at different schools—but she still remembers the sex. Best guy she's ever had, which is saying a lot. But even at 18 that hadn't been enough: he was good-looking, but he didn't have a dime and didn't seem like someone who ever would, and she'd written him off. She knew from other kids that he didn't know her last name, that he was looking for her, that he had it bad for her, but she was setting her sights higher. More to the point, richer. Well, shit, look at him now.

She had started her research that day, and several weeks later had moved to New York. That was six months ago, and thanks to the work of a very pricey, very discreet private detective and to her own digging, there's very little that she doesn't know about Richard Castle now, including his finances, his living arrangements, and his marital and otherwise romantic/sexual history. She has forced herself to read every one of his two dozen novels. She has learned that a homicide detective in the NYPD is the model for his Nikki Heat; she knows that he appears to be crazy about her, but they've never dated. Furthermore, this Nikki—Kate Beckett—had been shot, nearly died, and is still away recovering from the heart surgery that saved her life. Rick and Detective Beckett do not appear to have communicated since then.

So: Rick's available, Alison's available, and she's hot on the trail. She still has enough wherewithal, as well as enough contacts, not only to find out the date and location of the launch party for his latest book, _Heat Rises_ , but to land an invitation. When the day arrive, she goes to her hairdresser for a cut and highlight, has a mani-pedi in the afternoon, and finally slips into a new, killer dress and shoes. She's going to blindside him.

The party is in some trendissimo restaurant in the Meatpacking District. Alison sits (stands) through the drinks, halfway listens to the too-clever remarks by the publisher (Rick's second ex) and starts making her move. Literally, her move, as she stalks/glides across the floor and taps him on the shoulder in the microsecond between the departure of one fawner and the arrival of another.

"Excuse me," she says, using her best faux-Charlize body language, which she has skillfully adopted from a recent Dior commercial. "Ricky? I mean Rick?"

She watches his standard charming smile shift slightly. She can tell that he's processing, that he's running a memory check. His eyes change, widen. She knows the moment that he knows, that he's got it. Her. And she thinks she may already have him.

" _Alison_?"

"Yes! I'm amazed that you remember." Good thing she'd applied the blusher so effectively.

"Of course I do. My God. I. Of course. Wow. You look so—"

She tosses her head lightly. "So do you, Rick," she says, touching her fingertips lightly to the sleeve of his Armani jacket.

"I. Wow. Did you know that—God, I can't believe this. Did you know that I looked for you for a year?"

She sees that people are anxious to interrupt, but her unapproachability is still intact. No one dares. There's a golden-aired space surrounding the two of them. She allows a tiny frown—it's all that Botox allows, too—to surface. "You did?"

"Yeah, I did." She watches his eyes dart to her left hand, register the absence of any ring. "Listen, would you like to get a drink? I mean, after this? Unless your, uh, date."

"I'm here all by my lonesome." She smiles. "And I'd love to. But Rick, I can see that a lot of people want to speak to you, so I'll just sit over there in that chair until you're ready. Use the time to start reading your fabulous new book." Which will bore me as much as all the other ones, she does not say.

"Great. Wonderful. Shouldn't be more than about half an hour, okay?"

"Perfect." She makes her way to the chair, opens up the book, and is very pleased to see that it is not dedicated to Detective Kate Beckett.

Forty minutes later, after she's made her way through the same five pages countless times without registering a word, they're walking to a bar he knows, a few blocks away. It's nine o'clock and the late-summer heat is clinging to everything, but she puts her arm through his and can tell that he's happily surprised.

He orders Scotch, she has a Cosmo. "Very cornily Sex and the City,' I know, but here I am living in New York, it seems right." She looks at him over the rim of her glass.

"You live here?"

"Moved in the spring. After my divorce." She unnecessarily waves her unadorned left hand. "Wanted a fresh start and I've always loved this town." She takes a sip. "What about you, Rick? Married?"

"Um, no." He looks into his single malt. "No. Divorced. Twice. But I have a fantastic daughter, Alexis. Super smart, starts her senior year in high school in a couple of weeks."

"Do you get to see her often?" As if she didn't know chapter and verse on the kid.

"Oh, yes. Daily. She lives with me. I've had full custody since she was a baby. Her mother's an actress. In L.A."

"Sounds as though you're a hell of a dad, then."

"I don't know about that," he says, and laughs. "But somehow she has turned out incredibly well. What about you? Any children?"

"No, never happened. Still, I'm enjoying my, what do you call it, freedom. Trying to find my footing here, on my own."

There's a little silence. She's made sure that her shoe brushed his once or twice, that her thigh touched his on the stroll here. "Maybe I could help," he says.

"Maybe you could." She takes another sip of her pink drink.

"This will sound nuts, but I don't know your name. Your last name, I mean."

"Oh, I went back to my maiden name. For a clean break."

"That's what I meant. I didn't know your name in college when we, when. I didn't know your last name, and that's why I couldn't find you. That whole year."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. Really, you didn't know my last name?" Since I never told you.

"No." He shakes his head emphatically. She notices how thick his hair is.

"I just figured that was it. When I didn't hear from you, I figured it was just a one-time thing. A lot of guys…" She lets her voice trail off. Summons up a bit of girl-done-wrong sadness in her eyes.

"No, no, no! You must have thought I was such a bastard. Seriously, I couldn't wait to see you again, and not just because of the— After that night, you know."

"Oh, I _know_." Girlish giggle. "I never forgot that, believe me."

His face explodes into a grin. "Really?"

"Really." That's the truth. "And it's Dunwittie."

"What?"

"Dunwittie. My last name."

"Dunwittie. Okay, Alison Dunwittie. I've got to get home to my daughter now, but what do you say to dinner on Saturday? See if we can begin to find your footing."

"I'd love that, Rick."

He's found them a cab and she wonders if he'll kiss her when he drops her off. He does, on the cheek. "Pick you up Saturday at eight, Alison Dunwittie."

"See you then." She has to hand it to him: he hadn't blinked at her name, and the man does love word play.

The next morning, Kate Beckett is sitting morosely at her desk and the Twelfth. It's her second day here, and she can't get her gun back until she requalifies. Jesus, this new Captain is a hardass. Requalify? She can't wait to get to the range later today, put a whole clip through the heart of the target as she mentally superimposes the face of Victoria Gates over it. But her real sorrow is rooted in something else: the absence of Castle. Espo and Ryan had filled her in, told her how Castle had showed up day after day, week after week, sometimes falling asleep late at night at her desk, trying to find some leads on the sniper who had shot her. Until finally Gates tossed him out.

The boys had been shocked when she told them that she hadn't spoken to Castle, that he hadn't called her. When she confessed that she had told him not to, and had never gotten in touch with him, they were appalled. She doesn't blame them. She gets up and goes to the ladies room, shuts herself in a stall, and cries for the third time today. It's her fault. It's all her fault. She doesn't dare call or even text him after so much time, but as she goes through yet another Kleenex, she comes to a decision. She'd seen a sign in Barnes and Noble: he's signing _Heat Rises_ there tonight, and she's going to show up. Set things right.

She drags herself through the day, though she does briefly feel some satisfaction at shoving her perfect-score target across Gates's desk, and holstering her gun immediately afterwards. There's just enough time for her to go home and change, put on a little more make up, before she goes to the bookstore.

It's past seven, and she's been standing in line for an hour. She's close enough now that she can hear him greet his fans, say something nice to even the worst gigglers. She's trying not to look, but she's up next, and she does. He's thinner. The blue-and-green plaid shirt looks great on him, though. And there she is. "Kate. You can make it out to Kate."

He looks up, and he's so angry.

TBC

 **A/N** Though Alison Dunwittie is my own character, her genesis is in Alison (no last name), who was briefly mentioned in 2x15, "Suicide Squeeze." Castle told Alexis, "My first year of college I went to a party, I met this girl Alison. In the space of six hours we met, we talked, we danced, we fell in love. Next morning she was gone. I spent a year trying to find her, but I never learned her last name. There's not a week that goes by I don't think about her."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He's rigid. At first she thinks he isn't going to sign at all, but eventually he moves the Sharpie across the dust jacket and then all but thrusts the book at her, without a word. Without a smile. Without a nod. She waits a moment, but his attention is already on the next person in line. Woman, of course. Woman in line.

Beckett clutches the book to her chest and tries to keep the exit in sight. She's having trouble catching her breath, but she manages to get through the door to the outside. She looks down at the cover, which is essentially a silhouette of her holding a gun with the city skyline in the background. "Richard Castle" is scrawled across it, almost illegibly. There's no "To Kate," just his name. Not even "Rick," but "Richard." She wants to slide down the wall, sit on the filthy sidewalk and weep, but she won't. She's not giving up. She can fix this. She goes back into the store, making sure that she's nowhere near Castle, and walks to the front desk. After a discreet show of her badge, she learns where the staff entrance is and positions herself outside the door. She's sure that he'll leave this way: book signings take a lot out of him, and he always wants to get home quickly and not have to deal with the inevitable horde of non-book-buying autograph hunters who wait at the front.

Here he comes, and it's obvious that he hasn't seen her. Once he has finished thanking the staff, she trots after him, calling after him to wait. He keeps walking, and she runs a little faster until she catches up with him and puts her hand on his arm. "Please, Castle. Please stop."

He turns his face to hers. "No. You stop, Kate. I've had it."

"Please, you have every right to be mad, I understand."

"Do you? I doubt it. I was a fool. I should have realized it when you kicked me out of your apartment right before Montgomery was killed. You called me the school's funniest kid, Beckett, and you said that wasn't enough. So you know what? I've had enough. Bye."

And he's gone. And this time she can't hold back the tears, and she finds a cab and goes home and has a drink. And sobs into it. And then another, but she stops sobbing halfway through. And then she makes a very strong pot of coffee and while it's brewing goes out to the bakery on the corner and buys half a dozen chocolate cupcakes. And eats two of them with her two cups of coffee while she's propped up against the kitchen sink. And she puts the cup down and blows her nose and goes in the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror.

"You look like crap, Beckett." She leans in and stares at herself. "No, you look like hell. Worse than hell. You look like the ninth circle of hell. The one even Dante wouldn't go into, for Christ's sake." And she smacks herself hard, right across the cheek. "And there's no excuse. Got that? You're a fighter, so go fight. Grovel, if you have to."

She's grateful that it's Friday night. She has no date. Of course she has no date, since she'd hoped never to have to date anyone again ever, but go directly to Castle, who she should have been dating before now. And now she's not because she's been the fool and he said he'd had enough. But now, fueled by massive amounts of mocha—coffee plus chocolate cake—she resolves not to let that happen. He had come back to her so often; this time she's going to go back to him. She has a whole weekend to figure out how—how to apologize, how to explain, how to make him understand. In her head, she sounds a lot less shaky than she feels. "WWCD?" she asks her reflection, and answers herself. "He'd have another cupcake." So she does, thinking how much Castle loves them as she swallows the last bit of frosting. She checks the time: almost eleven o'clock. She has roughly 56 hours, from now until she goes to work on Monday morning, to map out a plan, two parts contrition, one part seduction. Whatever it takes.

Beckett remains dateless the next night, but Castle doesn't. Alexis is going to meet some friends and ducks into her father's office to tell him that she's off. He's not there, but she hears him in his bedroom, and the door is open, so she knocks on the frame.

"Dad? You here?"

He emerges from the depth of his closet, wearing a dress shirt and gray pants and carrying five ties. "Hi. You going out now?"

Her eyes widen. "Are you?"

"Going out? Yeah."

"On a _date_?"

He makes a face. "Geez, Alexis, you don't have to sound so horrified. Or shocked. There are still some women out there who consider me a catch."

"I'm not horrified, Dad, I'm thrilled. It's just, you haven't, well, _dated_ since..."

"Well, that's changed." He holds up two ties.

"Who's the lucky woman? Anyone I know?"

He turns to give her his full attention. "Do you remember a year or so ago when I told you about a girl I met in college, Alison?"

"Sure, how you had this total connection even though it was only night, like Gram and your father, I guess. You fell in love and you never could find her but still think about her—oh my God, Dad! Please don't tell me she had a baby and I have a sister I never knew about who just showed up at the door."

"Have you been watching soap operas with your grandmother again?" He pulls Alexis's hands away from her eyes. "No, no long-lost sibling, but I did find Alison. Or rather, she found me." He tells the story of the book party, and fills her in a little on Alison's life, though his narrative is interrupted frequently by squeals.

"It's so cool, Dad," Alexis says, giving him a hug before she leaves. "Have a great time. Oh, and wear the red tie."

Later that night—much later—he's brushing his teeth and going over the evening. It had been great, and he'd been very tempted to stay with Alison rather than come home, alone. Alison is gorgeous, almost as gorgeous as —. He's not thinking about that. And she's fun and she has read all his books and wanted to know about his early days as a writer. They'd had dinner at Jean-Georges, his favorite French restaurant, which he shamefully admits he chose not just for the food but because he knows that Alison lives almost next door to it, and it would be so easy, so _satisfying_ , to go from dinner to her bed. And she made it quite clear long before their shared dessert that that's what she was hoping, too. It's been months and months since he has had sex with anyone but, well, himself, and it's way past time to leave this Gonad Gobi, this Sexual Sahara. The trouble is, a tiny fraction of his brain needs convincing that he really is over Kate. He's still furious at her, but when she waited for him outside the book store yesterday it had nearly killed him to turn his back and walk away.

He sleeps fitfully. Sunday morning, fueled by mocha—coffee plus pain au chocolat—he resolves to make the break. He has already told Beckett goodbye, and he has no intention of returning to the precinct. After Gates kicked him out ten days ago, he'd called his pal the mayor and asked him to intercede so that he could go back to the Twelfth. Now he's going to call and cancel the request, while he still has the nerve. It's the right thing to do. He owes Weldon a call, anyway, wants to organize a poker game. No time like the present.

Except he's a little late. Weldon, it turns out, had called Gates on Friday and essentially informed her that Castle was once again on her roster. The two men apologize to each other, and Castle says that it's his fault, and that he'll make the call to Captain Gates tomorrow, rescinding the request. He's not looking forward to the hell she'll put him through, but it has to be done.

At the same time, roughly three miles uptown, Alison Dunwittie is leafing through the paper and wondering how it was that her date with Rick had ended in them going their separate ways. He had seemed to be enjoying himself—more than, really—but something was holding him back. She needs to apply a little more pressure. He really is a nice guy. Easy on the eye, funny, rich. But they don't have a whole lot in common. Well, she can fix that. She's done her homework. It's then that an ad in the paper catches her eye, and she smiles. All that investigative work is about to pay off. She picks up her phone and calls him; they chat briefly and agree to meet at two. "It'll be a great way to spend a cold, rainy afternoon, Ricky," she says. He agrees.

Beckett had spent most of Saturday cleaning her apartment and sorting out her closet, just the things to do while she lets her mind wander over how to approach Castle. The weather is horrible on Sunday, but her place is closing in on her and she want to get out. She has finished her breakfast and is reading the paper when an ad catches her eye. She smiles for the first time all weekend. "He'd probably say the universe is speaking," she says to herself. "This is amazing. I'm going." She's getting dressed when she remembers something: the blue blouse. That blue blouse. That's what she'd been wearing before. The other time. Yeah. She knows just where it is in her closet, knew there was a reason she'd kept it even though there's nothing special about it. Except that there is. She finds it and puts it on.

It's 1:55, and she's getting a bag of popcorn from her favorite salesperson, Madelynn, who always remembers: no salt, no fake butter. "Good to see you, Kate," Madelynn says.

"Same here. It's been a while. Nice to be back."

Madelynn shoves a small bag of gummy bears across the glass. "These are on the house," she whispers. "I read about your shooting. I was so sorry. I sent a card to the precinct, but—"

"I know you did. That was so sweet, thank you. Everything got forwarded to me but I was, well, recovery was a bitch and I'm so sorry I didn't thank you."

"No problem, sweetie. Enjoy the movie. I know it's one of your favorites."

"Thanks." She pockets the gummy bears and goes to look for a seat. She finds just what she wants about ten rows down, right on the aisle so she can stretch out her legs. She has a piece of popcorn halfway to her mouth when she smells something familiar. Someone here is wearing Castle's aftershave. Shit. She's going to have to move. There are only so many signs from the universe, not to mention olfactory stimuli, that she can handle at the moment. When she was staying in the loft last year after her apartment blew up, she sneaked into his bathroom to get the name of that aftershave. Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet. Over the summer she had ordered some and had it sent to the cabin. Sprinkled a little on the pillow case. It helped her sleep. Sure. The smell is getting closer. She has to move now. She hears a woman say, "I can see why you say the Angelika is a New York institution. What a great place!"

Beckett grabs her purse, gets up from the seat, and is turning to go out into the aisle when several things happen almost simultaneously, overlapping one another. She sees the woman who she had just overheard; thinks to herself how much she looks like Charlize Theron; the woman's elbow clips Beckett's bag of popcorn and sends it flying, and the ersatz Charlize asks her Blenheim Bouquet-scented companion (whom Beckett has not yet seen), "How often have you seen this movie, anyway?"

Two other things then happen at the same time: Beckett slips on the popcorn and lands flat on the floor, and the previously unseen man, who is now only inches away from her says, " _Forbidden Planet_? Gotta be ten, fifteen times."

TBC

 **A/N** Let the games begin!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

People who suffer a serious fall often experience it in slow motion. It doesn't happen that way, but because a part of the brain produces an extra set of memories during a trauma like that, time seems to slow down. Beckett is thinking of this as she lands flat on her ass and feels some unpopped kernels of corn sliding beneath her. She's not in physical pain, has not broken or sprained or scraped anything, yet time is creeping. From her vantage point—the floor of the movie theater—she's already ranking this the most traumatic fall of her life. The first thing she sees is the woman who bumped into her, now motionless and looking like a Madame Tussaud's version of the movie star. The second thing she sees is her favorite pair of blue eyes, though she doesn't remember their ever having been this shocked, or this blue.

"Beckett?" the owner of the blue eyes says. "Oh, my God. Are you all right?"

She doesn't know how to answer his seemingly simple question, and before she can say anything at all he is scrabbling to help her up. He grips her waist with one enormous hand, a soft-as-a-baby's-bottom hand that is warm against the skin that her tumble exposed, pushing the hem of her shirt up several inches. He uses his other hand to hold one of hers, and pulls her gently upright. His arms are incredibly strong, but lift her with such tenderness. It reminds her of his rescuing her from her bathtub, of the way he held her in the freezing storage container, of the—. She's standing now, dusting herself off and noticing, with the only pleasure that she can extract from this hideous moment, that up close Charlizewannabe actually has the faintly waxy skin of a mannequin. Beckett suspects Botox. She's also pleased that she's literally looking down on the competition, has at least four inches inches on her. Whoa! Wait! The competition? That's what she's thinking? Damn straight.

"Excuse me," Beckett says. "Could you move your foot, please? You're standing on my gummy bears."

"Sorry, what?"

"Your right foot." It's like explaining something to a kid in nursery school. "It's squashing my bag of gummy bears."

"Oh." She moves her four-hundred-dollar shoe six inches to the left, and Beckett bends over to retrieve the bag.

"Would you like them?" she says, offering the candy to Botoxbabe. "Castle loves to mix them with his popcorn." She detects the not-disguised-quite-quickly-enough distaste on the competition's face. "I think he needs them more than I do." Since B-babe hasn't taken the bag, Beckett turns to Castle. "Want them?"

"Um."

"You going to introduce me to your…friend?"

"Oh, manners, sorry, I. Yes, of course. This is Alison Dunwittie. She, she, uh, she invited me to the movie this afternoon. Spur of the moment thing. Called me up and asked me. To the movie. Alison, this is Kate, Kate Beckett."

Kate reaches for the woman's right hand and shakes it. Hard. Very hard. Mashing metacarpals hard. She has to give credit to Alison—Dunwittie? oh, God—for not wincing, much. "It's a pleasure," she says, referring to the delicious notion that she might have cracked a Dunwittie bone. "So, you invited Castle to _Forbidden Planet_? Interesting choice."

Dunwittie finds her tongue. "I know how much he loves sci-fi," she says, with a toss of her newly highlighted hair.

Beckett turns her head so that she can look directly at him. That son of a bitch. This was their movie. Theirs. His and hers, not his and Dimwitty's. He told her that he'd never seen it before. "You've seen this movie ten or fifteen times, huh? So, since March 30th, less than six months ago, you've seen _Forbidden Planet_ nine to fourteen times? Did you get the DVD or what?"

"DVD. Right. Ah, Beckett, are you sure you're not hurt? I think you might have torn your blouse there. A little. Your blouse, from before." He looks panicky. With reason.

He remembered. He remembered what she'd worn when they went to this movie half a year ago, but he didn't remember to tell Dimwitty he'd seen it half a trillion times already so maybe they should do something else? Preferably outdoors. In a fully lighted place. "I'm fine, Castle. Gonna sit back down, watch the movie. Hope you enjoy it. For the eleventh or sixteenth time."

She watches them walk farther down the aisle and get two seats. Much as she wants to leave, to run home and drown her sorrows in whatever she can get her hands on—the hands she'd like to get around Dimwitty's neck, the neck that's probably only a year way from the first nip and tuck—she's going to stay right here. She doesn't need to watch the movie; she knows every frame of it, just as Castle must. To tell the truth—and she might as well tell herself the truth since clearly he won't-doesn't-didn't—she'd suspected that he'd seen it before. That little boy, " _Forbidden Planet_ , is that the one with the robot?" Jesus, how had she fallen for that line? Because it was cute, that's why. He was cute. At least he hadn't used it on Dimwitty.

New York City's finest homicide detective doesn't need to watch the movie, but she needs to monitor them. She how handsy they get. See if there's any surreptitious kissing. For an hour and thirty-eight minutes, she watches them. It's torture, but she does. There are a few whispered exchanges, maybe one goo-goo eye exchange. Alison. There's something in the back of her brain. That name is familiar. Not the Dimwitty part—no way in hell she'd have forgotten that—but the Alison. It's ringing a tiny bell. A little tinkling, that's all, but a major irritant. Thank God, the final credits. She's out of here. Alison, Alison, Alison.

By the time Beckett gets home the name is clanging like the freaking Liberty Bell, crack and all. She makes a cup of coffee, sits down at her desk, and turns on her computer. Ryan may be the techie on their team, but she is a skillful navigator of the internet. Furthermore, she can navigate without leaving tire tracks or a wake or a jet stream. Alison Dimwitty. Dunwittie.

Beckett slogs through society-page stories from the Chicago Tribune, obsequious features from the Chicago Sun-Times, and some little snippets from local television stations. Alison Dunwittie Carson, Alison Dunwittie Krauss, Alison Dunwittie Green. Oh, Mr. Green divested himself of her! Why, here's Alan with the new Ms. Green, who appears to be half Alison's age. The stories about Alison stopped about a year ago. Did she move? Is she maybe living here now? How does she know Castle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they could have met at a party this summer while she was sitting in her flannel PJs by the lake, nursing her various wounds, but why does she have some vestigial memory of the name Alison? What's the link? She's going to have to look harder, and that requires fuel.

The chocolate cupcakes. Fortunately she'd had the wits to put them in the fridge, well wrapped, so they haven't gone stale. She puts all three on a plate—hey, she'd given away her gummy bears and her popcorn had fallen on the floor before she'd had a chance to eat most of it—and pours another cup of super-high-octane coffee. She's three bites into the second cupcake when she hits pay dirt. Dimwitty went to college about 30 miles away from Castle's, and Dimwitty and Castle are the same age, only two weeks apart.

"Alison!" Beckett jumps at the sound of her own voice. That's it. That's it. It all comes back to her. Castle had told her the story one night when they'd had one drink too many after a tough case. Alison was his college dream, the girl on the pedestal. The one with whom he claimed he had some deep, deep, deep connection even though they had met only once, spent only one night together. Ha, Dimwitty. A slut even then. She had had him by the short and curlies and he'd never been able to find her. Why? "Because she didn't want you to, Castle!" Beckett shouts. "And I'll bet you a season ticket to the Angelika that she didn't just happen to meet you again now."

She leaps up from her chair, jabbing a finger at the computer. "He wasn't good enough for you then, right, Dimwitty? But now that he's rich and famous, he is?" No, no, no. No, no, no. "He's not yours, Alison. You think I'm letting him go without a fight?" Her face is scarlet. She takes a deep breath and leans forward until she is nose-to-nose with a photo of her rival on the screen. "You have nooooooooo idea."

 **A/N** Thank you all for reading, and thank you especially for reviewing, favoriting and flowing.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Beckett shuts down her computer and starts ruminating on where Castle and Dimwitty might have gone after the movies. To dinner? Too early. Late lunch, maybe? Ruminating takes an immediate and very sharp turn to fulminating. What if they went to Remy's? If he took her to Remy's she swears she'll have his balls for breakfast. Oooh. Wow, if. She has to shake off that image. At least he wasn't the one who'd suggested they go see _Forbidden Planet_ ; that was you-know-who's idea. Still, it was a hell of a coincidence. Kate likes long arms, but not when they're attached to coincidence. She likes long arms when they belong to, say—oh, go ahead and say it—Castle. The arms that picked her up off the floor of the Angelika while Dimwitty just stood there. The Angelika, one of Castle's favorite places.

The cracked Liberty Bell starts clanging again in Beckett's brain. Research. She researched Dimwitty; Dimwitty must have researched Castle. He'd mentioned the Angelika in a couple of interviews, and he's always talking about how much he loves science fiction but doesn't write it. So Dimwitty clearly knew that and must have seen the same ad in the paper this morning that she had, New Print of the Classic Film yada yada. It was just bad luck that Beckett had gone, too—or maybe good luck. If those two had just met again for the first time since college, Dimwitty hasn't had much time to get her claws into him. And that "coincidental" meeting is what put Beckett on the trail. So, not bad luck, after all. Might even call it serendipity. Speaking of one of Castle's favorite places to eat: Serendipity. That man does love to eat. Oh, an idea has bubbled up from nowhere. It's brewing, like a great cup of coffee. It's so good that Beckett can almost smell it.

She goes to her desk and turns the computer on again. Where does this creature live? She's got money, though probably not as much as she wants. She probably bought a condo or a co-op, definitely within the last year. Beckett starts exercising her internet skills and in the time it takes to make a pot of coffee, she's got it. The real-estate market is still recovering, and six months ago Ms. Alison Dunwittie snagged a spacious one-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath apartment on Central Park South for one point three mil. What's good about this for Beckett's purposes is that it's within two blocks of three different subway lines. Not that Dimwitty ever uses the subway, Beckett thinks. She does, though. She loves the speed and the anonymity, and if she times it right, she can get from the precinct to that building in fifteen minutes, maybe less. She'll be able to run into Dimwitty, quite by chance. Engineered chance, of course—engineered by the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Detective herself. And the Detective knows just when to do it: lunchtime. Alison doesn't work, but she has the look of a lady who lunches. Low-calorie, but still lunch.

She'll map this out. She'll go to bed early. She has to start looking her best. The appearance of Alison Dunwittie has really shaken her up, but it's also pushing her hard. She's had to jettison her original plan for wooing Castle, which did not include her having to cope with Another Woman, but she'll do it. She has to. Tomorrow is Monday. A new beginning.

She's been back on the job for only a few days, and she misses Castle. They're not busy today, thank God, just catching up on things. She usually ate lunch with Castle, but since Gates has torpedoed him she'll feign going out alone. Shortly after noon she gets up from her chair and stretches.

"Hey, guys?" she says, turning half way to look at them. "I'm going out for some lunch, stretch my legs. Back in an hour."

"Bring us a treat," Espo says.

"Do I look like I have Castle's money? I'll bring you something, but don't expect a three-course meal."

"A cookie will do," Ryan says, glaring at his partner.

"Fine." She figures the boys will give her some leeway for a bit, and she's counting on it in case "lunch" runs a little long, or she has to do it for several days. She walks to the elevator and then through the lobby at a normal pace, but the minute she's clear of the building she runs to the subway. Forty-five seconds after she's through the turnstile, she's sitting on a molded plastic seat on the train, hurtling uptown to Columbus Circle.

At the same time, ten blocks east of Columbus Circle, Richard Castle is sitting on a black leather Mies van der Rohe chair in his publisher's office. He figures that at least $300 of the $1,200 price tag came from the company's profits on his books. He had intended to call Captain Gates this morning and tell her that he wasn't returning to the Twelfth after all, which would almost certainly have made her day, if not his. He already misses the casework. The unlimited access to grisly crime scenes. The friendship. Even the mice. And, top of the list, the person he has been trying to wipe from his mind. Seeing her at the Angelika yesterday had set him back. When he was helping her to her feet he realized just how vulnerable she is. She may be tall and tough, but it's been only three months since she was shot in the heart and had cardiothoracic surgery that damn near killed her before it saved her. And she's so _thin_. He could feel her protruding hipbone hard against his palm when he picked her up.

The worst was how hurt she looked. The anger he could take, because he was angry, too, but not that. She was right: _Forbidden Planet_ is—had been—their movie. He'd pretended to her that he'd never seen it for the best of all possible reasons: so that she'd ask him along, so that he could have her break it down for him, so that he could see the light in her eyes as she told him about her favorite scenes. Which, no surprise, were also his. And now she knows that he lied about it and doesn't know why, and there he was seeing it with another woman. Not just any other other woman, either. Alison. Beckett has a memory like the Tianhe-2 supercomputer, and she—.

"Rick! Richard!"

"What?"

"Are you listening? And why are you wincing as if I'd just hit you?"

Why is he wincing? Because it just dawned on him that Beckett must know exactly who Alison is, must remember every word of his half-drunk description in that bar they'd gone to a while back. "Sorry, Gina. Sorry, just thought of something I need to take care of. You were saying?"

"Well, speaking of things you need to take care of, I was _saying_ that there are two more Nikki Heat books on your contract. You haven't written a word all summer, as far as I can see. And if you don't honor this commitment I will sue your ass from here to Ankara."

"Ankara?"

"Figure of speech. Jesus, Rick. Pay attention. This is really very simple." She holds up two perfectly-manicured fingers, the nails painted an appropriate blood red. "You owe me two Nikki Heat books. Two. And now you're saying you're through? Not a chance, buddy."

"But," he's feeling feeble. "But Captain Gates kicked me out. I'm not allowed to shadow Detective Beckett any more."

Gina slaps her hand down on her desk, which is the size of a suburban backyard deck. "Oh, please. Don't give me that. The mayor can get you reinstated in a second. Don't tell me he can't. Nikki Heat is the best thing that's happened to the NYPD in decades. So call the mayor or I will."

"Really, Gina, it's not necessary."

"You'll make the call, then? Today?"

"No, I mean it's not necessary for me to hang out at the Twelfth any more. I have plenty of material for the books without going there."

Her mouth falls open, exposing her gleaming teeth, which he notices for the first time are frighteningly sharklike. "You must be joking. For years you've insisted that you have to be there. Have, have, have to be there. Every goddamn day. I don't know what's going on, if you've had some lovers' quarrel with Beck—"

"We're not lovers."

She waves dismissively. "Tell her you're sorry for whatever, beg her forgiveness, send her a million roses, I don't care. Just do it. Understood?" She checks the Tiffany carriage clock on her desktop. "I have a lunch meeting in five minutes, so that's it for us. And I expect to hear by this time tomorrow that you're parked in that ratty chair next to the Detective's desk. Got it?"

"Yeah. Enjoy your lunch." Fuck, fuck, fuck. Now what? One what is that he's going to Alexis's Senior Class Father-Daughter Dinner tonight, so he won't be able to see Alison. Another what is that he really needs to think. Maybe he'll call his lawyer, see if there's any way out of this stupid contract. Buy his way out, maybe? He can afford it. But what he needs first is a good, stiff drink. He'll go to his bar and shut himself in his office with the order not to be disturbed. Until he untangles himself from this unholy mess. Out on Madison Avenue, he ducks into a cab and gives the driver the address for the Old Haunt.

For once in her miserable life, something has gone right. Beckett had thought it might take her several lunch hours to find Dimwitty coming out of her building, but here she comes, just ten minutes after Beckett had stationed herself thirty feet away. Implied to the doorman by a flash of the badge at her waist that she was on some kind of stake out. Recon. He was excited, and since she hadn't said a word, she hadn't lied. Everything is cool. Here comes Alison.

Beckett steps in her path, but not so close that they collide. She doesn't want a repeat of the Angelika incident.

"Alice? I mean, Alison?" Delivered with the trace of a smile.

"Oh, Kate."

"Wow, what a surprise, bumping into you again. And so soon. Not actually bumping this time." She chuckles convincingly. She's been practicing.

"Right." Alison looks around as if she expected to see someone else. "Are you on a, uh, case? Up here? I mean, don't you work downtown?"

"Yes, I do. Nope, just had an appointment. So, did you enjoy the movie?"

"Oh, sure. I can see why Ricky likes it. Very camp."

Camp? Is this woman out of her mind? It's not _camp_. What the hell is Castle thinking, being with her? Please, God, he hasn't been with her. At least, not since 1989. "Ah, right. I hope you got something to eat afterwards. There are so many great places around there. One of Castle's all-time favorites, Cabrera. Maybe he took you?"

"No, no. We went to The Starlight. He thought it was perfect after seeing sci-fi."

Shit, she loves that place. Well, at least he didn't go to Remy's. Cold comfort. "You should surprise him with Cabrera. Plus everyone there loves him." Beckett looks at her watch. "Oops, gotta go. Nice seeing you." She slips by the beautiful if all-but-expressionless Dimwitty—how much Botox has she had, anyway?—and heads for the subway, making a mental note to get cookies before she goes back to work.

Alison watches the detective disappear. She stops and puts one shoulder against the side of the building, and squints.

Castle is on his second mellow Scotch, wishing that it would make him a lot more mellow, when his phone rings. Alison? He doesn't want to speak to her; he's trying to work everything out. But he doesn't want to put her off, either, so he answers. "Hi!"

"Hi, Ricky. I hate to bother you, you're probably getting ready for your evening with your daughter."

"Don't be silly. I don't have to be home for a few hours. What can I do for you?"

"An old friend of mine, girl I grew up with, is in town just until tomorrow and wants to have dinner. She's in SoHo, and I heard about a great Spanish place, Cabrera. I don't know anything about it, though, and since that's your part of town I thought I'd check with you. I see it has two stars."

"No, absolutely not! No. Anywhere, anywhere but that."

She knew it. She knew it. That little bitch Beckett. Lying cop. "That's quite a reaction. Sounds like you hate it."

"Hate it? Hate is not strong enough. I went there and a huge—I mean _Guinness Book of Records_ huge—cockroach crawled right across my silverware. And when I said something to the maître d', who had gone to some wayward school of restaurant management, I swear, he told me, 'That's not possible, sir.' Totally snotty. I held my temper but then they screwed up our order and I got food poisoning from the mussels. Went in two days later and they said no one else had been sick, so perhaps I just had a bug of some kind. I said yeah, a cockroach, worst bug ever. They never apologized, wouldn't adjust my bill, nothing."

"Wow, well, you saved me from embarrassment, or worse. I think we'll just go to a place I know on Prince. Not going to keep you. Thanks, Ricky." Oh, Kate Beckett, she thinks. You are so out of your league. Should she ignore or? Nah, let her know. Alison pulls up the contact list on her phone, once again noting that the exorbitant amount of money she had paid the PI was worth it. There it is: Katherine Beckett's email address. She types a three-word message and clicks her phone off.

A quarter of an hour later Beckett notices an email on her cell. From A. Dunwittie? How the hell did she get her address? It's personal. Private. Supposed to be, anyway. She opens it. "Nice try, cucaracha." Oh, my God. She is mortified. And furious. At Dimwitty, who apparently is not so dim after all, and at herself. What had she done? That was a stunt a 15-year-old would pull. She wants to die. Or at least go home and get drunk on tequila and feel sorry for herself.

And at 4:15 she does just that. And while she's drinking in her rapidly darkening apartment she wishes that she could get a piñata that look like Dimwitty and smack it, hard and repeatedly, with a stick. If only she were drunk enough. If only it were cinco de mayo, instead of cinco de septiembre. If only a lot of things.

TBC

 **A/N** Belated thanks to mobazan27, who reminded me of Castle's short conversation about his mystery girl, Alison. I was just going to make up a rival, but those few lines in 2x15 gave me a starting point.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Beckett shuts down the _¡Ay Pobre De Mí!_ Fiesta, and to ensure that the pity party doesn't start up again she tosses the rest of the tequila down the drain. "Not making that rookie mistake again. I still want that Dimwitty piñata, though," she says as she watches the amber liquid disappear. She knows she needs to put something substantial in her stomach, so rather than call out for a pizza or Chinese food, she orders a truly healthy meal from her favorite neighborhood Mediterranean place. She even sets a place at the table instead of eating standing up at the counter or worse, over the sink. "Mmm, brain food," she says after finishing her tilapia Florentine. She'll do some hard thinking tonight, including more research on Dimwitty. That fish and spinach she just had? Bound to give her some ideas.

While Kate Beckett is working on some ideas, Alison Dunwittie is formulating one of her own. She's surprised that a hot-shot detective is so stupid. The woman loves that idiotic movie _Forbidden Planet_ , for God's sake—and she went by herself? Who does that? And then she'd tried to trick her into taking Rick to Cabrera? Kate's no slouch in the looks department, she has to say, and judging from what was on display on the movie theater floor, she has a hell of a body, too. How does she manage that if she's gorging on popcorn and those disgusting gummy things? Maybe she's bulimic. She knows they've never dated, and that Ricky has called it quits on "following" Kate for his books, but she could feel the heat between them in the theater. Weird. No matter, she'll stomp out that little fire if she has to. What time is it now? A little after 9:00. Too early to call Ricky, who must be at the father-daughter school dinner thing, so she texts him:

"Free for lunch tomorrow? Pascal's at 1:00? Dying to see you and catch up." Take that, Kate, you lightweight. You eating disorder lightweight.

He responds an hour later: "We're on! See you there." Good. In the morning she'll figure out what to wear. Something appropriate for daytime and 80 degrees, but designed to get him drooling over her rather than the food.

The next morning Beckett has barely had time to put her bag in the drawer when Gates calls her in, with a look that says she had a bowl of hydrochloric acid for breakfast. Now what?

"Yes, sir?" Beckett asks, standing in the doorway.

No good morning, just a stab of an index finger to indicate that Beckett should sit. "Is Mister Castle coming in today?"

She tries not to gape as she freezes halfway down into a chair. "Excuse me?"

"Mister Castle, your once and future partner. Is he planning on favoring us with his wit and insight today?"

"Sir, I was given to understand that you—that he was no longer working here. With us. Assisting."

Gates sighs. "Well, Detective, that was true, but it isn't any longer. Mayor Weldon has informed me that his bosom buddy Richard Castle is back, regardless of my views on a civilian hanging out in my precinct, playing at being a cop. His return necessitates a sheaf of new paperwork, liability, et cetera, and I want it done asap. Hence my asking if he'll be here today."

"I haven't talked with him, but—"

"Then I suggest you get on the phone and do so." She glares. End of conversation, apparently.

"Will do, sir."

Well, that's one for the books she thinks, as she makes herself a cup of coffee in the break room. He'd told her he was done with her. A moment later she nearly scalds her hand as she yelps, "Books!" He still has two Nikki books to produce under for his current contract, so he must be coming back to do research. But why? She flashes on something Esposito said to her last year. "What, research? The guy's done enough research to write fifty books." Surely he can write from home, then? Nothing's changed here except the captain. And her relationship with Castle, which has changed plenty. Disintegrated. Fallen apart. In shreds. Eighty-sixed. And then there's the biggest change of all, even though it's not technically at the Twelfth: Alison Dunwittie. The previously unknown pestilence, poisoning everything. Dimwitty, the plague of 2011.

She takes the coffee to her desk and tries to pick apart the puzzle. And then she has it: Gina. It must be. There's no other explanation, and this one makes sense. The woman has very little use for her, but she loves the details of cases, and she's mad about verisimilitude. Castle had always made a point of telling his publisher that it was imperative that he work with Beckett for "absolute authenticity." No other crime writer—and this was true—had access anything like his, and it helped send his books to the top. "People can't make stuff up like this, Beckett," he'd say during a particularly vile case. "Well I could, of course, but some people might not believe it. But knowing that I work with you, with the NYPD? Then they have to believe it." Beckett shakes her head. Wow, who'd have thought she'd be grateful to Gina, of all people?

Her problem now is that she's under orders to call Castle. She can't, she just can't. Not after what happened at the Angelika, not to mention her unspeakable Moment Of Humiliation yesterday with Dimwitty. The MOH Hall of of Fame. Besides, it's still very early in the morning and he's probably asleep. It would be rude to wake him. She's often texted him when there's a body drop, and surely this paperwork is no more urgent than that? She'll text. She spends a few moments mentally composing before she starts typing:

"Hey, Castle." Wait, should she say "hey"? Maybe it should be "hi." They always say hey, that's their thing, but that was when—. Damn it, she's saying hey. Alison Dimwitty is not forcing her to change that. She resumes. "Gates told me you're coming back to the precinct. Great news. She wants you to come in today to fill out paperwork. Thanks." Is that okay? The tone? Oh, just hit send. It's not Shakespeare.

Castle, rumpled and yawning over his second cup of coffee, is stunned to see a text from Beckett. Holy shit, she knows he's coming back? After his meeting with Gina, he should have been coming up with a way to tell her, but he'd put it off. He'll work with her, but it'll be strictly professional. Maybe he can put his chair over by the boys' desks, not next to hers, where he smells the vanilla-laced coffee and the cherry-scented shampoo and the pear-and freesia body—uh, hand—lotion. Why doesn't the stuff clash, anyway? She smells like the world's greatest fruit basket. Or orchard. Yeah, like an orchard. An orchard next to a garden. The Garden of Eden, maybe, where they could walk around naked. He has to stop thinking like this. He's having lunch with Alison. What does she smell like? He doesn't know; she just smells expensive. He needs a little time to prepare himself before he goes to the Twelfth. He'll do it after lunch. He'll text now, very straightforward. Nothing clever, just. Oh hell, it's not Shakespeare:

"Yup, back like the proverbial bad penny. I'll be there around three."

Beckett reads his text, several times. She'll tell the Captain he's coming. Maybe she'll go home at lunch to change into something more—something. In the meantime, she'll pretend to be calm.

Castle's already at the restaurant when Alison arrives, a quarter of an hour late. It irks him a little. He's never late. Neither is Beckett. It's rude. But God, look at her. She's wearing some silvery sort of thing, a confection. It's like a super-dressy sundress with silver thread shot through it and it's cut low. Décolleté without being risqué. Can see the curve of her breast though. If she's wearing a bra, it must be made of some gossamer microfiber. He stands up, kisses her on the cheek. She doesn't apologize for being late.

She knew this was the right dress. His eyes keep wandering to her chest and at one point he almost stabs himself in the nose with a salad fork. That's the good news. The bad is that his attention is wandering, too, as if his mind has left the restaurant. She's had to repeat herself a few times. She's about to try another tack when he drops the bomb that he's returning to work with Kate, at the insistence of his publisher.

"Hell, I can write fast," he says. "Could probably get two books done by New Year's."

That may be, but it also means almost four full months of him trailing around after Kate Beckett. Working all kinds of hours, late at night. Stakeouts, just the two of them in a car. She doesn't like this. She arranges her face into one of concern. "Ricky. Rick. I wasn't going to say anything, but…" She leaves him to pick it up.

"Say anything? What, Alison? You can say anything to me."

"It's about Kate. I'm worried about her."

"Worried? About Beckett?" He smiles. "Totally badass. Can take care of herself and anyone around her."

Alison moves her hand across the table to cover his. "That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about her state of mind."

"Sorry, I don't understand."

She makes a show of swallowing hard, and grips his hand. "She's following me."

" _What?_ "

She looks around as if she were afraid that Beckett was going to leap out from behind a curtain. "She's following me," she whispers. "Not stalking, but borderline. I was pretty sure that I saw her when you dropped me off on Sunday evening. When I got upstairs I looked again from my window and I was positive. I could see her standing in the shadows by the park wall, looking up."

"You must have confused her with someone else."

"She's hard to miss. I kept looking out the window, all night long, and she was always there. "

"Doesn't sound like her."

"Wait 'til I tell you this. She found out where I live, Ricky. I don't know how, I guess 'cause she's a cop, but she came in the lobby sometime that night and asked the doorman if I was home. Showed him her badge so he'd be sure to say. He was about to ring up and she said no, she'd give me a call later, not to bother me. That she was an old friend and heard I'd moved to the city. Wanted to surprise me later. The only reason I know was that I asked him the next day if he'd seen someone who looked like her and he told me the story." She tries to make her lip tremble, but can't quite manage it.

"I'm sorry. Listen, she's not a danger. She's just really upset, still recovering and everything. I'll talk to her."

"No, no, don't do that. It'll embarrass her. She's jealous of me. Of us. I've seen jealousy before."

He signals the waiter and gives him his credit card. "I'm going to get out of going back to the precinct. I can write the books fine without being there."

"I'm sure your publisher—Gina, yes?—will understand when you tell her. I met her at your book party. She seemed very reasonable."

"Right. Again, I'm sorry. I guess Beckett was more upset than I realized."

"I know you'll handle it very discreetly. I wouldn't want anything to happen to her."

The waiter arrives with the bill, which Castle quickly signs before taking his napkin from his lap and putting it on the table. "Can I drop you anywhere, Alison? I have an appointment downtown."

"Thanks, but no, Ricky. I'm not far from home. It'll do me good to walk off this delicious lunch." She smiles sunnily and runs her hand over her Pilates-taut stomach. Oh, life is sweet.

Life is a mess. Life is a total mess. Castle is stewing in the back of the taxi. Beckett is following Alison? She's really jealous? Under other circumstances he'd be flattered that two women were apparently interested, more than interested, in him. But this? Alison is his dream girl. Was his dream girl. Could be his dream girl. She's easy to be around, she's gorgeous—and he still hasn't made a move on her? What's wrong with him? He's got to extricate himself from the precinct, distance himself from Beckett. When he makes the break he can concentrate on Alison, concentrate on having have fun. He needs some fun. He doesn't have to write any more, he's got more money than he'll ever need. His mother and Alexis are taken care of. He and Alison could just sail the Seven Seas—although come to think of it, she doesn't seem like the sailing type. Roughing it. Wearing cutoffs. Eating hardtack. Having a parrot. Beckett would probably love hardtack. "It's fantastic if you dunk it in coffee," she'd say. And she'd love wearing cutoffs and having a parrot on her shoulder, teaching it to swear. Beckett cursing in high gear—which he's been privileged to hear on a few occasions—is beyond belief. She could teach a course in it at the Naval Academy.

Why is he thinking about Beckett in cutoffs? He needs not to think of her at all. Shit, they're almost at the precinct. He leans forward. "Excuse me, driver? I changed my mind. Could you pull over at the next corner please? I'll get out there." Beckett is jealous? Following Alison in the middle of the night? What happened? He needs to talk to her, but not in the precinct. He texts, doesn't want to hear her voice quite yet. It's 2:40.

"Can you meet me at the coffee shop around the corner? The one with the muffins?"

He waits.

"You mean now?"

She waits.

"Yes."

"Sure. On my way." She doesn't know whether to be happy or excited or depressed. She can't decipher his mood from the text. She should be able to after all this time. What's the matter with her? She gets her bag and walks over to Ryan's desk; Espo has stepped away somewhere. "I have to go out for a bit. Something I have to take care of, okay?"

"You all right, Beckett?"

"Yeah, fine. I'll be right in the neighborhood. If Gates comes looking for me, could you let me know? I can be back in less than two minutes."

He looks anxious. "Sure. Yeah. Will do."

"Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it. See ya."

Her hands are sweating as she punches the button for the elevator, and she's feeling more than a little unsteady as she approaches the coffee shop. She comes through the door; the place is pretty empty at this time of the afternoon, and she sees Castle all the way in the back. Looks like he has two coffees, but no muffin. That's a first. He always has a muffin.

She slips into the booth on the bench opposite him. "Hi, Castle."

"Hi. Got you a coffee." He slides the mug towards her.

"Thanks." Is he going to say something?

He's going to come right out with it. "I, um. I had lunch with Alison just now." God, Beckett is so pale she's almost invisible. "She told me you've been following her."

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks to blue1orange for allowing me to adopt the term "Moment of Humiliation (MOH)."


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

No, no, no, no, no. If ever there were a time to think fast and well on her feet, this is it, even though she's sitting down. On a bench with a tear in the pleather that's poking into her thigh. She can buy herself a little time by repeating what he said in the form of a question, so she'll do it. And it might prompt him to tell her exactly what Alison had said.

"Following her?"

What a beautiful face. All those years of watching that face, often from a few feet away—sometimes inches, oh, God, those times—come flooding in, and he tries to stem the tide. "That's what she said."

Don't make this confrontational or confessional, she tells herself. Use your best interrogatory technique. Soft but direct. Pin it down. "Sorry, what exactly did she say?"

He looks into his coffee, which is better than looking into her eyes right now. He takes a sip and puts his mug back on the table. There's a fine crack in the formica, looks kind of like a K. K is for Kate. Stop it. Just do this.

"We had something to eat after the movie on Sunday and I dropped her off at her building." Alison says Kate is jealous. Please don't let her think they went to Remy's. It's too late to say where they went, but please don't think it was Remy's, Beckett. "At lunch today she said that she thought she saw you across the street that night." He pauses for a moment, examining his coffee again, wishing he'd gotten a muffin for the distraction, but not sure if he could keep it down. "And when she got into her apartment she looked out the window and saw you out there, in the shadows."

Thank you, thank you, she says silently. That means he didn't go upstairs with her. No sex, then. What? Don't think that. That isn't the point. Well it is, but not right now.

"She said she looked out several times during the night and you were always there."

He's rushing now, speaking so quickly that she has to concentrate very hard to get every word. If he drops the axe, please let it be fast.

"You were by the park wall, looking up, all night. I said that didn't sound like you at all, but she said that the next day she asked the doorman if he'd seen you, someone who looked like you, you know, and he had."

Liar, that doorman is a goddamn liar. No, Alison is the goddamn liar. Did Castle even speak to the guy? Maybe Alison bribed him to say it. No, Castle didn't say the doorman told _him_ , besides, when would he have had time to speak to the guy? Alison told him all this just now. What crap. Her mind is racing faster than Castle's mouth.

"He said you came in at some point and badged him, asked if Alison lived there. When he said yes, you told him not to call her, just that you were an old friend and wanted to surprise her." He makes himself look at her, but her face is impassive and he can't read her eyes. He's never had that problem before. Almost never. Not lately, anyway. He feels the beginning of a crack in his heart, like the crack in the table top. The K.

"Why would I do that, Castle?" It's a simple question, simply put. No outrage, just calm. No denial, no admission.

Now he does see something in those eyes, something her even tone and expressionless face can't cover up. She's hurt and angry, just as he has been, but she's sad and—guilty? He's learned a lot by watching her interrogate people, watched her work them over with every kind of emotion, extract things no one else could. So he's going to finish what he started, and come right out with it. Be direct. "Because you're jealous?"

"Jealous?" She manages to keep her voice light.

"That's what Alison said. Jealous of her. Of her and me." Ouch, shit.

There's more than a flicker in her eyes now. "Is there a her and you?"

"Could you answer me first? Then I'll tell you anything you want to ask."

This takes all the courage she's ever known, and she needs a few moments to steel herself. "There are really two questions. Did I follow her? No, never. Absolutely not." No lying, no lying. "Though I did speak to her, at lunchtime yesterday, in front of her building." Wow, she can see that took him aback. "It was easy to find out where she lives. I just looked up recent real estate sales, which are public record." Stop justifying yourself, she thinks. "And the other question? Yes. Yes, I'm jealous. Every bone in my beat-up, disgustingly scarred body is jealous. She's your dream girl, and I'm not. Never can be." Don't cry, don't cry. "Can't compete with that, Castle. You and I met less than four years ago, but she's been in your head for more than half your life." She stops again, and takes a breath so deep she feels as though it's going to shoot out through the tissue that has grown over the bullet hole in her chest. "The thing is? I want to compete, but she doesn't play fair."

Her phone rings. Holy mother of God, it's the worst timing in the history of the world. Castle looks as if he's been hit by a truck. She's expecting—she doesn't know what she's expecting.

He gapes at her phone. "Who the hell is that?"

"Ryan, it's Ryan. I, uh, sorry." She picks up her cell. "Hi. What's up?"

"Gates wants you here now. Better yet, five minutes ago. Says, and I quote, 'And she'd better bring Mister Castle with her. He was due here at three.' You happen to know where he is?"

Castle is staring at her. "Yeah, I do. He's with me, actually. We were just having coffee. Around the corner, you know, his muffin place. Be right there." She ends the call before Ryan can ask anything else.

"My muffin place?"

He still has the hit-by-an-18-wheeler look, so she tries a small smile. "That's what I call it. Listen, we have to go. Gates wants me back and says you're supposed to be there right now signing all those papers."

He'll do it. Sign. Figure everything out later. Alison doesn't play fair? What the hell does that mean? What's going on? He pushes himself out of the booth, reaches for his wallet and drops a bill on the table. "Okay."

"Castle? That's a fifty."

"What?"

"You left a fifty-dollar bill."

"Oh. Yeah. Well. It's good coffee."

They don't speak on the short walk to the precinct, and make sure they're not making physical contact.

"Hey, Castle!" the desk sergeant says as they enter the building. "Good to see you, man!"

"Thanks, Sarge. Same here."

Before the two can begin tripping down memory lane, Beckett herds him into the elevator. "I think Hathaway missed you, Castle," she says.

"Missed the doughnuts I brought every day all summer."

"Oh." He'd been here all summer. Bringing the Sarge doughnuts. Oh, God. "That was nice."

"He's a nice guy."

She has seldom been so grateful to have the elevator doors open, even if her Captain is standing in the doorway of her office, scowling.

"You're late, Mister Castle," Gates says, tapping her watch. "I hope this isn't your typical practice."

"No, no sir. I try to make a point of being on time. Early, even. Just had, um, a bit of trouble getting a cab. Uptown, where I was. Uptown. Terrible traffic." He runs a hand through his hair and hopes she doesn't pull street cam footage to see if he's telling the truth. "I apologize."

"Fine. My office, please."

He follows her, his posture that of a man walking to the guillotine, or at the very least a witness about to face an exceedingly hostile prosecutor.

"Beckett?" Ryan is waving his hand, calling her to his desk. Esposito is next to him.

She walks over. "Yeah?"

"Want to tell us what's going on?"

"What he said," Espo mutters.

"Apparently Castle is coming back to the fold."

"Really?" Espo is surprised, his partner, delighted.

"Yeah."

"How'd that happen?"

"Dunno exactly, but Gates hauled me in earlier and said that the mayor had called her and instructed her—no arguments permitted—that Castle was coming back to the Twelfth. She told me she wanted him in today to sign all those papers he had to do last time, when he started here. I guess they were all voided when she got rid of him."

"That okay with you, Beckett?" Ryan asks.

"Sure." She hopes her face isn't giving her away. "Of course."

Espo looks straight at her. "Castle good with that?"

"I guess. We didn't really talk about it." At all. Not a word.

"You two kiss and make up, then?"

"We didn't kiss, Espo," she says, uncomfortably aware that her cheeks are red.

Ryan is all but dancing a jig. "Old gang's back together again!"

"Looks like it," she says. "Hey, I gotta get back to work."

It's work if you call emailing Dimwitty work, which she does. It's a monumental task just to think of that woman. She wishes she could catch her off guard with a phone call, but she's not breaking the law to get a cell number. She has her email, and that will do. Beckett sends it from her phone, since she's not using NYPD property to do it.

"We have to talk."

A short time later she finds that there's a reply, and cranes her neck to see if Castle is still in Gates's office. Yup. She opens the mail.

"Why?"

Oh, really, Dimwitty wants to drag this out? Fine, you bitch. "You told Castle I was following you."

Quick response this time "You are."

"This is not an email subject. Call or face-to-face. Your choice."

"Call."

Beckett gets a burner phone from an emergency stash in the bottom desk of her drawer, turns it on, and gets the number. She types another email. "Call me in two minutes. 646-555-7834. I'm sure you have your number blocked so I won't be able to see it. Don't worry, I won't go after it."

She gets up and walks to the interior staircase in the back of the old building, the only place where there's any real privacy, since she refuses to have this conversation from inside the storage closet. She leans against a grimy brick wall and waits. The phone rings.

"What was this bullshit about me following you, Alison?"

"You did."

"And that I stood outside your building all night? Talked to you doorman?"

"I was saving your ass. Would you rather I tell him what you really did? Accosted me and fed me a line about a restaurant?"

"Go right ahead. With my blessing."

"Sure."

"I'm not kidding. Tell him."

"Fine. I'll do just that. I'm sure he'll be glad to know that you're mentally unstable. Not so great in a cop."

"And I'm sure he'll be astonished to know that you have my private email address. Want to know how you got it."

Beckett can just make out a sigh. "I think you'll agree that it's a draw on that. Neither one of us is going to tell him about that whole episode."

"You do know that he's coming back to work here. Every day. With me."

"He told me wasn't. Right after I said you'd hunted me down, been hanging around my building at all hours."

"Guess he had a change of heart then, since he's here right now signing papers and—"

In fact, he has just finished, and left Gates's office as fast as possible. He looks around the bullpen. The boys are here; Beckett isn't. "Ryan?"

"Hey, Castle. Heard you're back in. Good news, man."

"Missed us, huh, bro?"

"I did, Espo. Missed all of you. But before we get all weepy over our reunion, you know where Beckett is? I gotta talk to her."

"Saw her walk out a minute ago," Ryan says pointing over Castle's shoulder. "By the back stairs."

"Thanks. I'll go check."

Alison has just interrupted Beckett. "And he'll be done with his stupid research in a few months. You may have him during the working hours, but it's pretty clear who's his for recreational time. And which do you think counts for more, hmm? You had your chance, all those years. Don't know what the hell you thought you were doing, but you dropped the ball and I've got it. Game's over for you, Katie."

"It's Kate. The only person who calls me Katie is my father."

"Katie's a kid's name. Suits you. This is a big-girl contest. Like I said, you're out of it."

Castle sees Beckett standing rigidly by the wall next to the stairs. Her back is to him, but even from here, in the dimly-lit corridor, he can see that she's almost crushing the cell phone she's holding. It's an old flip model. Huh? And now he's close enough to hear her.

"Not a chance, Alison. As for what you think you know about me? I don't give a flying fuck." She slams the top down and spins around. " _Castle_?"

He's speechless. He's staring at her, and he's imagining a flying fuck, not with Alison, but with Kate. Not the mile-high club, not sex on a plane, but actually flying. Having sex with Kate, in mid air, flying and floating.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The list of things that Kate Beckett has wanted to be is very short. When she was in kindergarten she announced that she'd be a ballerina when she grew up; by the time she was in third grade she had a new career choice: major-league baseball player. In high school and throughout her year and half at Stanford she set her aspirational bar even higher: first woman Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And when her life took a sharp turn, there was another thing: cop. That was it, though. Four things. Until now. At this excruciating instant, which is perhaps the worst Hall of Fame Moment of Humiliation ever, she wants to be magically transformed into a shapeshifter. She'd walk right through this wall and never be seen again.

She feels a little light-headed, and presses a palm against the bricks. Dammit, nothing happened. Her hand and all the rest of her are still here in the precinct corridor, with a slack-jawed Castle just a few feet away, staring at her.

"Flying fuck?" he says. "Flying fuck?"

If only he hadn't said it, or at least said it only once, but twice? She slumps against the wall and covers her face with her hands. "Jesus, Castle."

"Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm sorry."

She pulls her hands back just enough that she can see him. "Why are you sorry?"

"Actually, I'm not," he says happily. "I loved that."

She can't help it. She groans. Out loud. And then she puts her hands at her sides, makes a slight turn, and starts beating her forehead against the wall. Because her eyes are closed and because she's still concentrating on and pleading for transmogrification, she's not aware that Castle has moved next to her until she feels his hand cupped around her shoulder and his breath against her ear.

"It's four o'clock," he whispers.

"Oh, great," she mutters. "Now I know the exact time of my mortification. I'll make a note of it for my agony annals."

He's still whispering, and his body is blocking hers in such a way that no one walking down the corridor would know that she's there. "I've signed all my paperwork for the NYPD. Your shift is officially over. And since you don't have a case, you can leave now. We can leave."

She stiffens a little. "We?"

"You and I. We. We can leave together and go get a drink and finish the conversation that Ryan interrupted."

"I can't be seen in public. I'm a wreck."

"And that's why we're going to my office at the Old Haunt."

"But—"

"No arguments. I'll go down the stairs here and wait for you outside. You go to your desk and collect your things and say goodnight to everyone and leave, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. Geez, Castle." She stands up straight, shakes her head, and walks towards the bullpen without looking at him. He's looking at her, though, even if it's just her back, and he's smiling.

When Castle gets to the lobby, he stops and chats with the Sarge for a moment, tells him he'll be returning to the Twelfth tomorrow, and strides out through the doors he must have been through thousands of times, but never with this much joy or so many yet-to-be-asked questions. He waits just around the corner, and has counted to 117 when Beckett comes into view. "Going my way, Detective?" he asks, tipping an invisible hat.

"Apparently," she answers. A cab pulls up as if by magic. How does he do that? "How do you do that, Castle?"

He opens the door, waits for her to get in while he gives the driver the address, and joins her on the backseat. "Do what?"

"Always get a cab."

"Magic."

"It figures."

"You want to—"

"No, I do not want to talk. I mean, I do want to talk, but not here. And not without something in a glass in my hand that's at least eighty proof. Preferably more."

"Fine. Keeping quiet now."

When they reach the bar, he steers them to the side entrance so that no one can see them go inside. Once they're in his office, he points to the sofa. "Sit down, Beckett. What did you have for lunch?"

"Lunch?"

"The meal that civilized people eat in the middle of the day, half way between breakfast and dinner. What did you have?"

"Lunch. Um."

"You had um? What is that, some kind of Tibetan soup or something?"

"Coffee. Satisfied? I had coffee for lunch." She glares at him.

"Hold on a minute." He picks up the phone and presses two buttons. "Hi, Jeff? It's Rick. Yeah, I'm downstairs, coming right up for a roast beef on rye, with mayo and mustard. And a pickle. Make it two pickles, please, okay? Thanks." He hangs up and looks at Beckett. "Do I need to lock you in while I get your sandwich, or can I trust you to stay here?"

She folds her arms across her chest. "Staying."

"Fine." He takes the stairs, two at a time, and is back almost immediately, food in hand. He puts it on the coffee table in front of her. "You have to eat half of that before you get anything to drink."

"Fine." She takes a healthy bite of the sandwich and chews it slowly. "Thanks, Castle. 's good."

While she eats he fills a bowl with roasted almonds and pours two drinks, all of which he carries to the table. When he sees her almost empty plate he nods approvingly and holds out a glass. "Eighty-six."

"What?"

"Proof. Eighty-six proof, well above your minimum requirement. Glenlivet twenty-one-year-old single malt."

"Twenty-one, huh?"

"Yup."

"Old enough to drink itself, then."

He bursts out laughing. "Trust you to mock a two-hundred dollar bottle of Scotch, Beckett."

She tries not to look horrified. He's serving her Scotch that costs as much as a plane ticket to Miami. Of course he is. "Is it worth it?"

"You tell me." He raises his glass to her.

She takes a sip from hers. "Oh, wow." She licks her lips. "I think they undercharged you."

He's sitting now, just a few inches to her left. "So. Alison doesn't play fair, huh?"

"Boy, Castle, don't soften the blow or anything."

"Sorry, but that's where we were when Ryan called."

"I know. I know." She takes another sip. "I need to back up a little."

"Okay."

"More than a little, really. To the hospital. Actually before the hospital, but then the hospital."

"Beckett?"

She's not looking up.

"Kate? It's okay. Just start wherever you need to."

"I don't know whether I should drink the rest of this in one go, or stop." She glances sideways, so she can see him but not really see him. A moment ago he had looked amused, but now he looks expectant—and kind. She puts her glass down, takes a deep breath, and squeezes her hands between her knees. "You probably know this, or figured, but I remember about the shooting now. I told you in the hospital that I didn't, and I didn't, really. I was trying to sort out what was real and what wasn't, you know? What was pain and what was fear. But after another day I was sure. I was sure that you told me you loved me."

It's a jolt to his heart, but he's trying to be calm. He knew it. She remembers. "I did." He wishes that she'd look at him.

"You told me that you loved me when I was dying in the cemetery. I kept thinking about that all summer. Thinking about it while I tried not to throw up, while I tried to walk all the way across the room without stopping, while I did my stupid exercises so I could maybe go back to work. And start my life." She takes a quivering break and waits a minute. He doesn't say a word.

"Talk about a cruel joke, dying on the ground right next to the hole where I've buried, we've buried, our friend. Our captain. Would you call that the universe speaking, Castle? So when you never tried to get in touch with me for almost three months, I figured that I was wrong and maybe you hadn't really meant it. Just said, 'I love you, Kate' in the heat of the moment."

He suddenly flashes on Alison saying almost the same thing just the other day, at the book party. That he hadn't phoned after their one night together, so she figured that he hadn't cared. And that's what Kate thought? That he hadn't cared enough to call? "Of course I meant it. But you told me not to call."

"When have you ever done what I told you to? Or at least made some attempt to get around it? So when you never called I decided you you must not have meant it." She stops to catch her breath again, her hands knotted so tightly now that they must hurt. "And then I came back and the boys told me how incredible you were all summer. And I tried to talk to you, I wanted to apologize, to. To, uh." She can't help it, and she's furious at herself, but she's crying. She swipes the cuff of her shirt sleeve across her face. "And then along comes Alison."

This is the tricky part, she thinks. She doesn't want to tell him that his dreamgirl is just another gold digger. That she's using her resources—her face, her body, and especially her private detective, whose name Beckett learned just a few hours ago—to land him. How can she tell him without being a bitch? And worse, if she tells him the whole truth, lays out the evidence, it will break his heart. There has to be a way. She has to find a way.

"And she doesn't play fair? What do you mean?"

Think fast, Kate. Think fast. "Some of that's between her and me. Bizarre as that sounds. But partly it's what I was saying to you a little while ago, that she's been in your head for more than twenty years, Castle. She knows that, and she exploits it. I'm sure you do remember your night together as magical, as perfect, that she's perfect. If I were in your place I'd have turned her into my ideal. But you were eighteen, and an eighteen-year-old's version of ideal isn't usually the same as grown man's. So you've changed, but you've carried her with you unchanged. A goddess. Flawless." She clears her throat, picks up her glass, and drains it. She needs the eighty-six proof courage. "And God knows I'm half a world away from flawless." Time to do it. Time to look him right in the eye. "You've been having a great time with her, right? Fun? And beautiful."

"Yeah, I have." He's looking back at Beckett. Yes, he's had fun with Alison. But if he makes himself think, really think about it, he knows what's held him back. Twenty years ago—hell, five yeara ago—he'd have had her in bed before dinner. He'd have skipped dinner altogether for the sex. He doesn't love sex any less, but he wants dinner now, too. He loves dinner. He loves really talking during dinner. He loves talking in bed, too, but he wants someone interesting in the bed with him. He loves talking to Beckett. She's the most interesting person he has ever known, even if he's never had the chance to talk to her naked. Do anything with her naked. And Alison? Not so interesting any more. What really troubles him is that she has no real curiosity. None. He may have more than his share—"you're an unbelievable snoop," Beckett has said—but so does Beckett.

He reaches over and pulls her hands apart. And then he takes one of his and surrounds one of her. "I have had fun with her. I don't know if it that's enough any more, or not." He lets go, puts his hands on his thighs, and smiles."Sounded like you two were having a hell of a conversation this afternoon. From what I heard anyway."

If only he knew. "Yeah. And you know what? That's another conversation that needs finishing." She has no idea what part of her brain told her to say that, formulated the thought and then pushed the words right out of her mouth, but she's glad. She pushes herself up from the sofa. "I'm going to talk to her."

"I think I'd better leave the room, then. I'll be upstairs, with a large drink."

"No need for you to leave, Castle. I'm going to talk to her in person."

"You mean follow her?" What the hell is going on? This whole day has him turned inside out.

"Not follow her. No. Go to her building, ring the doorbell, and talk to her."

"Oh." Holy flying fuck.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all readers, reviewers, followers and favoriters; I love hearing from you. One chapter to go.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Yeah, well, I underestimated. There will be one more chapter after this!

Beckett is halfway up the stairs to the side door before he comes to his senses and runs after her.

"Wait! Wait up!" He stumbles on the fifth step, doesn't care. "Hang on."

She's on the sidewalk now, but stops and pivots towards him. "What, Castle?"

"Can I come with you?"

He has caught up to her, but he's breathing hard. She takes his arm and pulls him part way down the stairs. "Are you insane?" She grits out the question, looking a little crazed herself. "No!"

"Why not?"

"Is this a serious question?"

"Of course it is. I want to hear what you have to say to each other."

He's still hopeful, even though she's leveling him with a glare. "You're really not kidding? Okay, I'm calling my therapist right this minute to ask him to see you."

If they'd been in a room, rather than at the top of of a dingy, pitted-concrete staircase in rapidly approaching twilight, all the air would have vanished. For different reasons, each one looks shocked: she because she let slip something she never wanted him to know; he because—"You're going to a shrink?" That had slipped out, too.

"Back down. Now." She points as if he doesn't know the way to his own office.

He enters the room ahead of her, which is decidedly against the norm, and she crowds in behind him. "Sorry," he says. "That popped out. I just, I never thought you'd go to a shr—, a therapist. I'm just surprised. I'm sure it's good. Right? I hadn't expected it."

She sighs and looks at the floor for inspiration, but it's not offering any. "Department policy. I was shot in the line of duty, so I had to go. Get an all-clear."

"Oh, so you're through?"

She's staring past his shoulder, and that adult Scotch is looking more alluring by the second. If she actually hears it call her name, she's going straight to Dr. Burke herself. "Not exactly." She turns her head sharply in his direction. "Wait, why would you think I wouldn't go to a therapist, anyway? Because I'm too closed off?"

He doesn't like her expression, neither verbal ("Because I'm too closed off?" well, yeah) nor facial (irritation and hurt in equal measure), but he's on the spot. Careful, careful, careful. "No, not that. Private. You're a very private person."

"So you're saying I'd never ask for help if I needed it?"

That's exactly what he's saying in his head, but his mouth is going to say something else. "No. But you're the strongest person I know, and combine that with private—well. Anyway, I can see why the department insists on your going. For the trauma. That. So you're waiting for the all-clear? You're back at work, though, so you must be doing well."

"I already got the all-clear, Castle. I went back to him on my own."

She's entering a convent. She's managing a fish farm. She's giving up high heels. Any one of those—the first three things that inexplicably surfaced in his addled brain—would have been less confounding than the fact that she's voluntarily going to a therapist. "Oh. If he's helping you with the shooting, that's good." He mentally smacks himself: he's a writer and that's the best he can come up with? "The aftermath. Of the shooting. That's good, Beckett."

She sits down, hard and unexpectedly, on a chair. "That's not why I went back. You think I'm strong? Not about something really important." She sees the Scotch again, wondering if the bottle is following her around the room, like one of those creepy paintings with eyes that track you. "My heart. I'm very shaky on that."

This is uncharted territory and he's worried about stepping in the wrong place. He needs Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea, maybe. A map, at least. Something. "Well, you did get shot in the heart," he says feebly, fairly sure that's not what she means, but.

She sighs again, suddenly feeling oddly exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. "Not the physical one, the metaphorical." She has unconsciously opened her hand wide and is pressing it gently over her heart. "Because you're in there now, Castle. And that's why I have to go talk to Alison." She stands up again. "I'll see you tomorrow at the precinct," she adds quietly. "I'm really glad you're coming back."

He's in her metaphorical heart? Is that what she just said? He's still agog when she runs her hand lightly over his forearm and goes up the stairs. This time he doesn't follow her, his feet being metaphorically glued to the floor. He's still standing there a few minutes later when he notices that his hand is over his heart. "I need a drink."

When she reaches the street, Beckett turns right instead of left. At the last minute she has decided to go home first, not directly to Alison's, because she wants to change A) her clothes and B) her tactics. What she has said, shared, confessed, and blurted out to Castle in the last few hours has forced her to rethink everything. Once she's in her apartment she makes a peanut butter sandwich and sits at her computer: she does an hour of intense research, making mental notes and feeling grateful for the training that enables her to sort out, rearrange, and recalibrate huge amounts of information and keep it all straight in her mind. Satisfied that she has what she needs, she takes a quick shower, brushes her teeth, and reapplies her makeup. She goes to the closet, picks out a close-fitting green silk dress that is cut deeply both back and front, and pulls it on before slipping her feet into the highest pair of heels she owns. In the full-length mirror she nods her approval: yes, this is her warrior wardrobe, her armor, her camouflage. Yes, the scar where the bullet struck her is visible. Yes. Alison won't know what hit her. A metaphorical bullet to the spot where her heart would be, if she had one.

Beckett transfers a few necessities, including her badge and her phone, into a small bag, goes downstairs and hails a cab. Fortunately both the rush hour and the going-to-the-theater period are over, and she's on her way uptown quickly. Alison's lie to Castle—that Kate had badged the doorman but told him not to phone Alison because she wanted to surprise her—has given her exactly the line she needs. When she arrives, she strides confidently into the lobby, showing the doorman her badge as he confirms that Alison is at home. She assures him that the building's newest resident is not in trouble with the police, but that this particular member of New York's Finest—and she does, indeed, look very, very fine—wants her friendly, off-the-books visit to be a surprise. Beckett is careful not to state outright that she and Alison are old pals; if the doorman wants to draw that inference, she won't stop him.

The elevator lets her out on three. That's another reason the apartment cost less than it might at this address: it's barely at tree level, and won't have the spectacular park views that higher floors do. No wonder Alison could claim that she had seen Beckett standing out there the other night: she'd have been about sixty feet away—except that she'd actually been more than sixty blocks south, at home, pondering a battle plan as she fueled herself on coffee and cupcakes.

There it is, apartment 311. She has to stop for a moment to savor the irony. 311 is the toll-free phone number for virtually all of the city's non-emergency government services. Want to make a complaint about noise? Get schedules for trash pick-up? Find out about pest control? Call 311! Those three things, among a myriad of offerings, are what surface in her brain. So appropriate she thinks, as she makes a fist and knocks on the door, which is painted a discrete if bland and impractical shade of off-white. A few moments later she hears light scratching and a metallic click that tell her that Alison is looking through the peep hole. Silence ensues. Beckett knocks again, loudly. This time the door opens, and before the apartment owner can stop her, Beckett has quick-stepped through the small foyer and the living room to the north-facing windows.

"So, is this where you stood and watched me forlornly looking up at you the other night? Which of us was more bored, I wonder?" Beckett exercises some of her formidable self-control not to smile at Alison's surprise and extreme discomfort. Not to mention her lack of make-up, unflattering bathrobe, and bare feet. Kate is now more than eight inches taller than the other woman; if she were so inclined, and she's not, she could rest her chin on Alison's hair, whose roots could use a touch-up. Instead, she looks all the way down to the floor. "Did you know that your toenail polish is chipped? Might want to fix that after I leave."

"Which is now," Alison says, having finally found her voice.

"Oh, I don't think so," Beckett says. She'd like to drop down onto a handsome and very comfortable club chair that Alison must have gotten in one of the divorces, but she wants to maintain the height advantage. She stays by the window. "This is over."

"What?"

"Your pursuit of Castle. Ricky, I think you call him. Doesn't suit him at all, but of course you go way back. I think I was in third grade when you two met."

"I had my say with you on the phone, Kate."

"Ah, but I didn't have mine with you. See, I know so much more about you now, things just begging to be discussed."

"Nothing to discuss. I can't believe you came over here. How about I call Rick and tell him? He'd see it as pathetic a move as I do."

"You mean call him like you didn't call him when you were in college? Because you knew he was looking for you, but you were holding out for something better. Meaning richer."

"Holding out. Interesting term. You sure hold out, don't you? A real CT. Sort of amazing in the twenty-first century. Stupid, too, because he's the best lay I've ever had. And I've had a lot of incredible guys."

Beckett doesn't flinch. Doesn't react at all, just carries on. Dimwitty wants to be tacky about this, no problem. "Good for you, Alison. But to return to that starry night of your increasingly distant youth when he fucked your brains out? It must not have taken long. You flunked out of college the next semester, didn't you? Zero point three GPA."

No amount of Botox could have stopped the shock that's evident on Alison's face.

Beckett doesn't stop, either. She's found her groove. She's presenting a case just as she would at work, or as if she had a perp in interrogation. That's how she's looking at Dimwitty now, as if she were a perp. Someone who's committing crimes against the heart of Richard Castle, which is a newly-written Class A felony in Kate Beckett's personal justice system. She doesn't care if it's sappy. She's feeling pretty sappy about Castle now. "That's when you really started living on your looks, isn't it?" She looks the question at the perp, doesn't wait for an answer. "You could have been a better student, but not a star. You could easily have gotten a degree, but for what? What was out there for, oh, a C-plus graduate? All you had to do was look in the mirror—which I'm sure you did a lot—and know that there was much more to made on your looks, and it required so much less work than college. Until recently, maybe just a while before that last divorce, hmm? When you started to realize, for the first time, that upkeep was now a part of your life. The little sag here, the tiny line there. Your twenties and thirties in the rear-view mirror."

One of the things that makes Beckett a superb detective is her gift, enhanced by homework and experience, for reading body language. She knows that Dimwitty is marshaling an argument; Beckett is going to shut her down before she has a chance to air it.

"Moving along, to the present, or to the last few months? I have two words for you: Milton Crosby."

Bingo! She sees the tic in Dimwitty's elegant jaw, just next to her left earlobe.

"Look, you bitch—"

"It's Kate, or Detective Beckett, please. As I was saying, Milton Crosby—"

"I don't know where you get your information, Beckett."

"Kate, or Detective Beckett. Not Beckett."

"I don't know where you get your information, but—"

"Let me be clear, Alison, Ms. Dunwittie, that I got every bit of information I have—which is considerable, by the way—without breaking the law and without the resources of the New York City Police Department." The first part is not entirely true, though the second is. And some of what she knows is, in fact, just conjecture, but conjecture with strong roots. "Milton Crosby, a very expensive private investigator, is not unknown to me." Don't know the guy personally, but what the hell. "You paid him plenty and you got plenty. Castle's financials. Where he lives. The minutiae of his professional and professional life. So you know that you got him at a vulnerable moment, and you thought it would work. You were going to land him, reel him in. Husband number four. Quite a catch, right? If he hadn't been at such an emotional low point," for which, she thinks, I take much of the blame, "you'd never have begun to pull this off. He'd have been on to you even more quickly than I was."

Beckett is aware that the woman on the other side of the invisible interrogation table has been sizing her up, so it's time to say something about that, too. "You've been checking out my scar." She dips her head and looks at the mark that the dress doesn't conceal, the dress she had chosen in part for that reason. "Ugly, isn't it? You should see the one on my rib cage, where the surgeon had to slice into me in the ER. I don't mind people seeing it." Also not true: she hates people seeing it, but it suits her purpose here. "I'm proud of it, really. I was shot because I was doing my job, and doing it well. I'm sure you know, given Milton Crosby's thoroughness, that Castle tried to push me out of the line of fire. I'm grateful that he didn't succeed. The thing is, Milton Crosby's minutiae are not all-encompassing. Among the important things that Crosby doesn't know is what happened between Castle and me when I was bleeding out in the cemetery. And so you don't, either."

Throughout this scene—and in her head that's exactly what it is, a scene—she has kept her distance. Now she moves several steps forward until she is only inches away from Dimwitty. "Here's the deal. You let go and I don't tell him what your plan is, or was, because it would break his heart. I'm going to let him hold onto that adolescent dream of his. The perfect Alison Dunwittie. I'm doing that because I'm not letting his heart be broken with the knowledge that you're just a gold digger. A resourceful one, I'll give you that. But I will if I have to. And if he hears what it was that Milton and his minions dug into, he'll know exactly what you were up to, and that'll be the end of you."

She's calm and she's agitated, but unlike Dimwitty, she doesn't let it show. "So you're going to withdraw. Tell him goodbye, if you want, say it's not going to work out, whatever. But a clean break. Stay here if you want. There are plenty of old rich guys in New York City who would love some arm candy like you. Just make sure you get a better prenup this time."

Dimwitty is trembling, but she's done. She knows it, Beckett knows it. Each knows the other knows it. The dream girl had had an early and commanding lead, but she couldn't hold it. She's been outflanked. She walks angrily to the door, opens it, and jerks her head towards the corridor. "Go fuck yourself, Beckett."

"Class act to the end." She walks to the door, stops, smiles, and bends her head slightly to look the other woman dead in the eye. "Well, I don't need to go fuck myself, because—well, I'll leave it at that. You know why."

She leaves, and the door closes sharply behind her. Foregoing the elevator, Beckett goes to the emergency stairs, walks down half a flight, and sits on a step until she stops shaking. Once she does, she gets back on her feet, makes her way down to the lobby, and out into the street. When she's safely around the corner, she takes out her phone.

"Hey, Castle."

"Beckett! Where are you?"

"On my way home from Alison's. Wanna come over?"

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Does he wanna come over? Does _he_ wanna come over? Does he _wanna_ come over? Does he wanna _come_? _Over_? She asked one question, but it's really five. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

"I'm on my way. If I get there first, I'll wait outside."

"Okay. I'm at the subway, see you in a bit. Bye, Castle."

"Bye."

Much as he loves the idea of seeing her arrive, he doesn't want to be standing in front of her building empty-handed. That's when it hits him: he's been praying that the time for this would come, and it has. He has to make a stop, a really important stop that will mean that she arrives ahead of him, but it'll be worth it. He gets back on his cell and calls Fiorissimo, his one-name, one-man source for exactly what he needs this evening. Yes, Fiorissimo says, he has them. Yes, he can meet Castle in half an hour. Yes, everything will be perfect.

Castle had read about the brand-new variety of rose last spring, and immediately put in an order with Fiorissimo. That was when he had hope, which had then collapsed into hopelessness. But now? Hope is blooming in him like the flowers that Fiorissimo has tended for him all summer at his place in Queens, both outdoors and in, so that with luck some would be in blossom whenever Castle asked. Finally, he's asking.

He runs downstairs to the garage, gets his car, drives across the 59th Street Bridge, turns into the first parking lot on the Queens side, and steps out. Fiorissimo is already there, sitting in his van with two dozen carefully wrapped, perfect pink roses lying on the seat next to him.

"Wow, they're gorgeous, Fi. I can't believe it. Even better than I imagined. They're worth every penny."

"Lotta pennies, Rick."

"I'll say it again, worth every one and more. Don't forget to send me the bill. I can't thank you enough."

"My pleasure, man. I had the fun of growing them. So, she's worth it too, huh?"

Castle's grin outdoes the neon parking sign above them. "More than, Fi. Way, way more than."

He transfers the flowers to his car, but before starting the engine he calls Beckett.

"Hey, Castle. Where are you?"

"On my way. I'm sorry, I suddenly had to do an errand, but I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"No problem. I was just getting a little worried."

"Everything's fine. Be right there."

He drives like a madman, finds a spot half a block from her building, and rings the bell downstairs.

"Castle?" The intercom is scratchy.

"Yeah, can you buzz me in?"

"Done."

He hears her apartment door open right before he gets to the top of the stairs. He has the flowers behind his back and can just see her head peeking out. "Fourteen minutes? I thought you said twenty."

"I might have gone through a few red lights," he answers, walking down the hall towards her. "Or several. Good thing I know some people in the NYPD."

"Don't look at me," she says, and laughs.

"I am looking at you," he says as he stops at her door. "You're the only person I want to look at."

Her face floods with color, her cheeks almost exactly the same color as the roses he has just brought around in front of him. "Are those for me?"

"That's the idea. You did invite me over."

"Come in. Oh, I need to get a vase. Geez. Two vases, oh and water, they need water. So, water. For them." How was it that she was cool as a spring pond in front of Dimwitty, but is incapable of framing a simple declarative sentence in front of Castle? She drops one of the roses, and when she stoops to pick it the rest of them tumble out of her grasp. She feels a large, warm hand cradle her elbow.

"Beckett, let me. I'll get them."

"Need water."

He has all 24 of them in his arms now. "Right. I'll get it. Just point me to the vases."

"No, me. I need water." She walks disjointedly to the sink, turns on the faucet, and splashes cold water on her face. "Better," she says, blotting her cheeks with a dishtowel. "Oh, the vases."

"Found 'em. Move over a little so I can fill them up."

The space is not quite big enough to accommodate the two of them, and their thighs are forced tightly against each other. Neither one of them complains. Or moves. When Castle finishes the flowers and turns his head towards her, their noses are less than two inches apart. "Kate."

"Mmm?"

"The roses."

Their noses are an inch apart. "They're beautiful."

"That's their name."

She pulls her head back a fraction. "What name?"

"The flowers. It's a new variety of rose, called Kate."

"Kate? You found roses with my name?"

"No."

"No?"

"I didn't find them. I read about them last spring and had a guy I know in Queens grow them. Just in case."

She's having trouble speaking at all. "Of?"

"This," he says, still looking into those eyes that make him weak at the knees and very strong in body parts slightly to the north. "Just in case of this."

And to the astonishment of both of them, she bursts into tears and drops down on the floor. He stares at her for a moment before sitting next to her. "What's wrong?" he asks, more than faintly panicky.

"Ntsln."

He cups her chin in his one hand and wipes off her tears with the other. "What's that?"

She sniffles and swallows. "Not Alison."

He feels as if he's tumbled into the middle of _Alice in Wonderland_. Or maybe Alison Wonderland. He's at sea, floundering around on her kitchen floor with two dozen roses in the sink over his head. "Not Alison?" He wonders how long it will take them to straighten out this approximation of a conversation.

"You didn't bring me roses called Alison, and I'm so happy."

Why would he do that? Oh. "No, I didn't. I—there's an Alison rose?"

"Yeah," she says, still watery but now clear-voiced, if not completely comprehensible.

"How do you even know that?"

"I looked it up. The other night. I looked up things called Alison and then I saw there was an Alison rose. It was another thing I could hate about her."

He can't help it. He starts to laugh, a great, roiling guffaw that rises from somewhere, maybe the soles of his feet, and bubbles all the way up and out, until he collapses against her chest.

And then she starts to laugh, and tries to hold on to him with both hands. Everything from the last awful days is let go, and sails away.

"Beckett?" he says, controlling himself at last. "We have to get up."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing I'm sitting in the water that you sloshed down here and it's really uncomfortable."

She jumps to her feet, something he envies her as he struggles to get up. She offers him her hand. "I'm sorry, Castle."

"Just water, I'll dry."

"No, about Alison."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because I acted like such an idiot. But I really hated her. Hate her."

He looks at her, his head tilted to the side as he leans his hip against the kitchen island. "I'm sure you have your reasons."

"She thinks _Forbidden Planet_ is stupid."

" _What_? She told me she loved it."

"Yeah, well she lies a lot."

He's silent for a while. "You going to tell me about that?"

"No, and forget I said it. Except about the movie. You can't possibly be involved with a woman who's contemptuous of _Forbidden Planet_ , even if she is a dead ringer for Charlize Theron. Another reason I hate her."

"Dead ringer's right, you know. It took me a while to realize it, but she's turned out to be deadly boring. She's not interested in anything. Anything important anyway." He smiles. "You know what else? She'd never say 'contemptuous.' I'm pretty sure she'd have to Google it." His smile disappears. He's not angry, but he looks serious. "C'mere, Kate. Let's sit on the sofa."

She takes his hand and lets him walk her there. She doesn't want to say any more about Alison, and she's afraid he'll ask. A tiny part of her worries that he's leading her to the guillotine.

"You going to tell me why else you hate her?"

She shakes her head. Is the blade sharp? Is he going to lower it on her neck? "That's between her and me."

"So, nothing else?"

"One thing."

He doesn't press; he can wait.

"She had you. I hate her for that." She can't look him in the face.

"You can hate her for something else, if you need to, but not that. You know why?"

She raises her eyes a little. "No."

"Because she never had me. I flirted with the idea, for sure, and she flirted big-time, but that was all."

"Oh."

"Am I going to hear about your talk with her today?"

"Nope."

"Okay."

"You're okay with that?" She looks at him, astonished. "You wanted to go with me, for God's sake."

"I think I'm better off with my fantasy of a cat fight. Over me."

Beckett mumbles.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, no, you're not getting away with that. I promise not to ask you about your—chat?—but you have to repeat what you muttered just now. So I can hear it."

"If I tell you, can we not talk about her anymore?"

"Really? You may not believe me, but I'd love not to talk about her, Kate. Ever again."

"Okay." She breathes deeply. "I just said, 'I declawed her'. Satisfied?"

"Oh, very. So, are we clear here?"

"Clear?"

"That Alison is out of the picture. And you're in. Please tell me you're in."

"I'm in, Castle. So in I'll never get out. Don't want to. But—" She stops, suddenly deflated.

"But what?"

"Do we have to talk about the summer now?"

"No. We'll work that out another time. That's for another day. And we'll work it out."

Without warning, she gets up from the sofa and runs to the kitchen, picks up the vases of roses and brings them back to the living room, where she sets them on the coffee table. She leans over and inhales deeply. "They smell as wonderful as they look, Castle." And without another warning, not a hint or the faintest of signals, she throws her left leg over his right thigh, and her right over his left and sits down, her face so close to his that he can't bring her into focus.

"No one ever gave me roses before, Castle," she whispers.

"How is that possible?" he whispers back.

"Oh, I've gotten roses before. But not ones with my name. Not ones that someone grew for me. And I really want to hear that story, but not right now."

"Not now?"

"No, now I want to kiss you. If I were a betting woman, and I am, I'd bet you want to kiss me, too. I can feel it in my bones." She wiggles dangerously. "And elsewhere."

"I think I'm going to like finding your elsewhere."

Before he can say another word, she has both arms around his neck and is kissing him as well and as completely as he's ever been kissed. Her tongue is exploring his mouth, and her hands have already abandoned his neck to begin undoing his shirt, stroking his skin as she frees each button. The shirt lands on the floor and he breaks off the kiss just long enough to say, "God, you have the most incredible fingers."

"Thank you, but why haven't you showed me what yours can do?"

She didn't have to ask again, as his went to work—though he'd hardly classify it as work—first to slipping off her blouse and her bra, then to caressing her breasts. His mouth—sucking, licking, devouring—replaces his hands, liberating them so that he can slide her onto her back on the sofa and liberate her of her shoes and pants. She's bare beneath him, except for a wisp of pale pink silk that's masquerading as panties. Her skin is almost the same shade of pink, and she's breathing hard. He looks dreamily, lustily, lovingly, achingly at her, and the only word he can think of to describe her is luminous. That's all. That's it. "You are so beautiful, Kate, so—"

She cuts him off when she lunges at him, bringing his face down, kissing him, filling his mouth and scrabbling at his back. She brushes his jaw with hers and says directly into his ear, "Get your jeans off. Get them off. How can you even," and she palms him, "stand to have them on? They're so tight. God, I can feel you. Hurry up, hurry up."

That's the second request she's made tonight that she won't have to make again. Her hands are already unzipping his Levis while he's trying to toe off his shoes. He manages, through sheer desperation, to rid himself of shoes, socks and pants, and as soon as he has she's pulling down his shorts and, oh, God, her magical fingers can do that, too. She's wrapped around him like some warm life force; he has just enough mental capacity to get those pink panties off her, and now both of him are nothing but skin. Skin to skin. This may be the greatest moment of his life. She's everything he wants.

This may be the greatest moment of her life. He's everything she wants and somehow, some miraculous how, she has him. And he has her. If she were capable of real reflection now, she'd be stunned that for once she wants to toss foreplay aside. She's only vaguely aware of it, because all the rest of her awareness is focused on him. She hooks one foot in the small of his back. "Castle, please, this time I want fast. Fast and hard. Next time slow and all exploring, this time fast, please. I can't stand waiting."

The truth is, neither can he, and there's the third request he's honoring. She promises him a next time. He feels her foot urging him on and he slides over her once, twice, a third time, and in. She makes a noise he's never heard and will never forget, an erotic combination of moan, sigh and scream. Then there are her nonsense syllables, first choppy, then elongated, then stretching into a chant of his name, CastleCastleCastleCastle.

They are as perfectly in synch physically as they are verbally. They're like a perfectly calibrated machine, except there is nothing machinelike about the sex they're having, or about the passion or expression. She is arching up so powerfully, and he is meeting her with such force, that it's remarkable that they don't drive themselves right off the sofa and onto the floor. She explodes; just as the only word he could conjure up to describe her was luminous, so is this. She's explosive, and he's right behind her, which triggers a second orgasm in her.

They're wet and hot and gasping as he rolls her over onto his chest. "Our first time," she finally says. "Cant believe it."

"Didn't feel like it, did it, Kate? It was so new, but it was as if we'd been together forever."

"I know. I know." She stops talking so that her breathing and her brain can slow down and work in tandem. She kisses him in the dip of his collarbone. And then she tickles him, and tickles him some more until he does the same to her and they're both giddy. " _S'envoyer en l'air,_ " she says.

"What's that?" he asks, running his hand through the tangles of her spectacularly messy hair.

"It's French."

"I pretty much got that, but what does it mean?"

"To have sex. It means to have sex. It's what I feel like right this minute, Castle. It's a more beautiful way of saying 'flying fuck'."

 **A/N** The end of another story. Many, many thanks to everyone who read it, and especially to those who reviewed—including the anonymous ones whom I could not thank privately—favorited, or followed.


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